


angel of small death

by nykteris



Category: TWICE (Band)
Genre: F/F, i honestly have no fucking idea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-18
Updated: 2016-08-18
Packaged: 2018-08-08 23:10:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7777345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nykteris/pseuds/nykteris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She’s <i>swears</i> she heard a gun fire, swears she felt a bullet pierce through her flesh and through her ribs. But even with that, she can’t truly be sure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	angel of small death

**Author's Note:**

> i wish i had something substantial to say but the truth is idek what this au even really is or what i was trying to achieve with this fic so lol. dedicated to the queen of jeongmi nikki and the five (5) other people out there that ship jeongmi.

 

The last thing Jungyeon sees before her eyes flutter shut is the face of a girl hovering above her. She sees the girl’s mouth move, sees her saying something, but she doesn’t know what it is. Her ears ring from the sound of cannons and gun shots. Then her vision goes black.

 

 

 

Jungyeon remembers a story one of the other rebels had told her, something about the Valkyrie. The Valkyrie, her friend said, were the ones who scavenged battlefields and ushered the brave warriors into Valhalla. Only the truly worthy were allowed to enter Valhalla, and it was the Valkyrie who decided this. Could she be one of them? Jungyeon wonders, stuck in a limbo between...between what, she doesn’t know exactly. Life? Death? She doesn’t know.

She’s _swears_ she heard a gun fire, swears she felt a bullet pierce through her flesh and through her ribs. But even with that, she can’t truly be sure.

 

 

 

Jungyeon regains consciousness again after what feels like an eternity. She opens her eyes with difficulty; she flinches at the light, feels an unbearable aching flood through her entire body ― pain long overdue. She forces herself up even though white hot pain shoots through every vein and nerve in her body. The pain is exceptionally unbearable around her chest. It feels like she’s got a fire caged in her ribs, and it almost knocks her back down.

“You’re up,” says an unfamiliar voice. It’s soft, almost too soft that it’s practically just a whisper. It sounds bashful, it sounds secretive, it sounds like a million and one things Jungyeon can’t quite wrap her mind around given her hazy state. _But what a lovely voice,_ Jungyeon thinks. It’s soft but almost melodious, like a morning bird’s when it sings its song.

Jungyeon rubs her eyes and blinks. “Who are you?”

A figure steps out of the shadows and if Jungyeon’s mind wasn’t a puddle of goo right now, she would have definitely gaped at the girl before her. Jungyeon has never seen a girl even a quarter as beautiful as this girl, never seen a girl as lovely or as lithe as her. Her features are delicate but sharp all at once, as if grazing your fingers across the line of her cheekbone would leave you with a cut. Full lips, unreadable eyes. Jungyeon rests her hand on the left side of her chest, right where her heart should be. She doesn’t feel its rhythmic beating under her fingertips. “I was worried you wouldn’t wake up,” the girl replies. “Two moons have passed already.”

Jungyeon frowns. “I’ve been asleep that long?”

The girl nods as she walks further towards Jungyeon. Her gaze is thoughtful and studious.

“What about the others?” Jungyeon asks, the faces of Jihyo and Nayeon coming to mind. She feels a lump in her throat. “Are they...did they…”

“There was nothing I could have done for them.” Something like sadness passes over her face before her neutral expression returns.

It’s Jungyeon’s turn to nod this time. Death, watching your comrades die ― it’s all part of life, all part of war, all part of what Jungyeon signed up for when she decided that she was going to start standing up for and fighting for something. Jungyeon is no fool. She knows that if it weren’t Jihyo or Nayeon or Chaeyoung lying dead in the battlefield, it could easily have been herself. That, more than anything, is just the truth of life and war. Changing the topic, she says, “You still haven’t answered my question, though. Who are you? And why did you save me?”

The girl’s lips curl into a small smile. “My name is Mina,” is all she says. It leaves Jungyeon asking more questions in her head, questions she keeps to herself for now.

 

 

 

It isn’t after another week or so when Jungyeon can finally stand on her feet without falling over or being too weak to walk. Mina is patient with her ― always keeping a guiding hand on her to make sure she doesn’t topple over, always glued to her side to attend to her needs. Even after Jungyeon doesn’t need Mina to help her move anymore, Mina still sticks by her side. She smiles more often now, and her smiles reach her eyes now too.

Mina’s cottage is deep in the woods, Jungyeon finds. When she can finally move around and walk, she decides to go around the area until she finds any signs of civilization, but she only sees more and more trees. She decides to walk farther and farther every day, but to no avail. When she comes back after one of her walks, Mina tells her, “There’s no use trying to find the end of the woods.” To Jungyeon, it sounds like Mina is telling her there’s no use trying to run away or escape, sounds like Mina is accusing her or at least suspecting her of doing such. “The others did that, and I’d like to think you’re a little better than most.”

After that, Mina says no more about her daily habit of walking around the forest. Jungyeon heeds what Mina tells her and puts her focus instead on exploring what surrounds her ― what fauna and flora she can find, what their names were, what was dangerous and what wasn’t. She brings home different plants and herbs, mushrooms and leaves, anything she can hold in the palms of her hands and keep in her pocket; she shows them to Mina, who explains what they are. Jungyeon notices the shift in Mina’s mood when she does this and she thinks that she likes a smiling Mina ― like how she is now, explaining to her the medicinal value of the flowers she’d brought back with her ― better than a suspicious or unpleased Mina.

Jungyeon starts gathering flowers now ― flowers of all colors and sizes and variety ― and she bundles them together, tied neatly with a string. Mina waits for her by the entrance of the cottage and her face creases into a smile, one that Jungyeon finds herself growing fond of, when Jungyeon hands her the flowers. So everyday she picks flowers from the forest if only to make Mina smile.

 

 

 

The story of the Valkyrie comes back to Jungyeon’s mind every now and then. Usually it happens when she’s alone with Mina, or when she watches Mina go about her day. The Valkyrie, she remembers, ushered brave warriors into Valhalla. _Am I brave?_ she asks herself. She didn’t think so, not really. She never found anything particularly brave or courageous about herself ― if anything, she thought people like Jihyo or Nayeon or their fierce leader Yubin were far braver than she ever could be ― so she doesn’t see why, theoretically, she would even be welcome to Valhalla if it were as special as the Norse myths made it sound like.

When the rebellion broke out and the country was divided, Jungyeon dived headfirst into it all. A battle of the classes, of ideologies, of everything ― a battle too complex and a battle that would go down in history as decreed by whoever would win in the end. Prior to that, Jungyeon had never even held a rifle in her hands, let alone shot a man dead between his brows; in a grotesque and perverse way, it reminded her of a time before she was deployed into the battlefield ― summertime ― when they were shooting watermelons out of (morbid) boredom. She recalls how each and every watermelon exploded outwards as they shot them, an explosion of red. “Kind of like blowing up a guy’s head, isn’t it?” Jinyoung jested.

Jungyeon never thought she was particularly brave or anything. She just had a resolute acceptance of death, following what Musashi Miyamoto said. This was just one of the many things ingrained into her mind when they put a rifle in her hands and told her that anyone who wasn’t one of them, wasn’t part of the rebellion, was the enemy and had to be shot. Jungyeon reflects on it now but she still doesn’t see herself as brave or even as a proper warrior like the Vikings or the Samurai.

But what does that make Mina? Angel, Valkyrie, death itself ― what was she? Who was she? Jungyeon asks her this but Mina just smiles and shakes her head. She waits and waits for an answer but is left with none.

 

 

 

Mina rarely leaves the cottage. It takes a while for Jungyeon to notice this despite all the time they spent together. Mina never stopped her from going outside to pick flowers or to hunt for their next meal, never doubted she was up to anything else other than that (not anymore, anyway). But Mina herself rarely ever wandered around the woods and whenever Jungyeon asked her why, she wouldn’t really give a concrete answer.

Sometimes Jungyeon asks her to go with her but still Mina refuses. “I know these woods far better than the back of my own hands,” Mina offers as an explanation. “I’ve grown rather bored with it, really.”

Jungyeon sighs. When she plops down to sit beside Mina, she asks, “Remember when you told me it was pointless trying to find the edge or the end of the woods?”

“Yes. Why?”

“I’ve thought a lot about it and, based on my understanding of what you said, I’ve come to the conclusion that the woods that surrounded your cottage is literally endless.” Jungyeon furrows her brows. “Realistically or logically, that wouldn’t be possible. Figuratively, sure. But for it to actually be literally endless is like something out of a fantasy novel or sci-fi flick. It all makes a lot of sense to me, though. That’s the only plausible explanation I can think of, anyway.”

Mina turns her head to look at her. Curiously, she asks, “How so?”

Jungyeon shrugs. “Well, one of the last things I remember before waking up again was that a bullet ripped right through my chest and heart and killed me, yet here I am. The idea of an endless forest sounds a lot less absurd than that.”

Mina chuckles. “So that’s all the logic and reasoning enough for you?”

“Yeah, I guess. I always thought it wasn’t impossible for the supernatural to coexist with the mundane, and that it’s all just a part of daily life. Frankly, not a whole lot about...this makes any real sense to me ― I swear I died, I swear I did ― but maybe some things are better left not understood or questioned.”

“And why do you think that?”

“I don’t think any explanation I can make up could ever possibly explain anything or everything, so I’d rather just leave everything as is.”

Mina is silent for a few heartbeats before she says, “You know, I took you for the very curious type. All the ones before were. They asked and asked, and it was their own curiosity that…” She clears her throat. “What I mean to say is, you never fail to surprise me.”

Jungyeon observes Mina. She doesn’t quite understand Mina, not really. But she likes being around her, likes her. She’s got a smile that even the sun cannot rival and a laugh far better than anything else Jungyeon has ever heard in her life. Jungyeon figures then that you don’t really necessarily need to understand or comprehend something ― or someone, in this case ― to like it (or in this case, her).

 

 

 

There are times when Jungyeon thinks of life, death and rebirth. She looks down at her hands; they are calloused and scarred, her skin is rough to the touch. The hands of a girl turned soldier, the hands of a girl turned living corpse. At least a part of her thinks that’s what she is now. She doesn’t feel her heart beat in her chest, doesn’t feel the pulse in her wrist. But she is alive (could this be counted as being alive?), she is moving, she isn’t buried six feet underground. Was it all an illusion? Who knows, really (definitely not Jungyeon).

Life, death, and rebirth. Could this be rebirth then? It didn’t quite feel like it either. The closest thing she can compare this to is being stuck in a limbo between two world, two realities, not even heaven and hell. Yes, that must be what this is. Some sort of in-between, maybe, some sort of not-quite purgatory but maybe some sort of reality that teetered between life and death and some other thing.

Uncertainty ― Jungyeon is filled with it. Then she looks at Mina and Mina smiles at her and she feels something twist and turn and bloom and explode in her chest and just like that all of her uncertainty is gone to dust.

Two, three, four ― and then Jungyeon loses count ― moons pass. Jungyeon knows Mina almost as well as she knows herself now, knows all the little nuances and idiosyncrasies of the other girl. Sometimes she catches Mina looking at her...expectantly, though Jungyeon isn’t really sure what it is Mina is expecting of or from her. Whatever the case, Jungyeon has long concluded that there really is no place she’d rather be than here (wherever in the known world(s) this ‘here’ could be) where Mina is.

When Jungyeon can’t help herself anymore, she leans into Mina and presses their lips together. She is curious, she wants to know what Mina’s lips taste like, wants to know what it feels like to kiss her. She finds that Mina’s lips are soft and smooth and warm, finds that she tastes sweeter than any fruit or candy Jungyeon can think of. It’s like an explosion in her mouth and Jungyeon decides that she likes kissing Mina, and judging from the smile that tugs on the other girl’s lips, maybe Mina likes kissing her too.

 

 

 

Jungyeon’s questions stop and Mina starts to smile more. In truth, Jungyeon stops being vocal about her questions by choice; she didn’t like the sudden shift in Mina’s mood when she asked too much ( _Where are we? What are you?_ ) and how Mina would have a distant look in her eyes. She stopped asking not because she had a resolute acceptance of how things were, but because she wanted Mina to keep smiling and laughing the way she always did now.

Jungyeon still had a lot of questions floating around in her head. Who were ‘the others’ that Mina kept mentioning? Did she save them for the very same reasons she saved Jungyeon? What was she? Too many questions, far too many questions. Mina, as per usual, would never answer.

In the midst of her questions is the realization that she loves Mina, is in love with Mina. Truthfully, loving Mina is loving the unknown (because what did she really know about Mina anyway, aside from the fact she loves her and her alone), and she wonders if Mina loves her too, wonders if that was why Mina saved her then in what felt like eons ago. Was it possible to love someone you barely even knew, was it possible to feel something for someone you didn’t know that it made you want to ― made you want to offer them salvation, no questions asked?

_Why me? Who is she? What is she? I love her, God, I love her, I do. Where are we? What am I? I love her, I love her._ She squeezes her eyes shut and pinches her nose bridge. Too many thoughts, too loud. Jungyeon feels Mina’s hand on her shoulder, soft and gentle, and Jungyeon lies down and rests her head on Mina’s lap.

“Is something wrong, Jungyeon?” Mina asks, brushing aside a few strands of the girl’s hair. Her fingertips barely graze Jungyeon’s skin.

“It’s nothing. My head just started aching again.”

“That’s what happens when you think way too much,” Mina jokes, her lips curling into a smile. Just as easily as the smile appears, it fades away and something dark and somber settles over Mina. “You won’t leave me, will you? You won’t leave me like they did, will you?”

Jungyeon opens her eyes and looks up at Mina. “Of course not.”

“How can I be sure you won’t?” It sounds almost cautionary. It sounds a lot like _they all said the same thing, so how can i be sure you’re not like them?_

“Because I love you,” Jungyeon says ― no, she declares it. Yes, she loves Mina. She might never come to fully understand Mina in her entirety but she knows that she loves Mina, knows that Mina is lovely and kind and has a smile that could melt even Pluto’s heart and that maybe she was just a little lonely. “They left you but I never will, and that’s because I love you.”

Mina’s eyes light up and she bends down to leave a lingering kiss on Jungyeon’s lips.

 

 

 

(Mina ― angel, demon, savior, damnation, everything else in between ― she doesn’t know. Later on she will realize it no longer matters who or what Mina is. All that matters is that she is Mina’s, and Mina is hers.)

**Author's Note:**

> honestly what the fuck is this


End file.
